A Walk In The Park
by grrlgeek72
Summary: Chapter 6 finds Anna struggling to cope with the revelation that Elsa had hurt her long before Coronation Day. Hanky alert! All feels, no plot in this chapter.
1. A Question

**Punchout**

Kristoff was mucking out Sven's stall when he heard someone approaching. "Hi, Feisty Pants!" He called out, without looking around.

"Is that any way to greet your Sovereign Ruler?" There was amusement in the voice. Kristoff nearly jumped into the hayloft and barely missed stabbing Sven with the pitchfork. Holy Icicles! It was Elsa!

"Your...Your..Majesty! I'm so sorry!" he stuttered, his face red. Ice was his life, but he didn't want to spend the rest of it as an ice sculpture in the castle garden for the pigeons to...roost on.

Elsa had a look of warm affection in her eyes, and didn't seem ready to freeze him solid right at this very moment. "I thought we had this discussion already. To you, my name is Elsa, not Your Majesty."

She had come to appreciate the Ice Harvester over the month since she first met him, and was glad that his friendship with her sister Anna seemed to be progressing nicely. Elsa wasn't certain yet, but she had a strong suspicion that the relationship would become more than friendship. Anna seemed content to let it grow without rushing things, and that was just fine with Elsa. Her little sister had seemed to learn a lesson from her near-disastrous experience with...that man. Elsa sometimes couldn't bring herself to even **think** his name.

"Okay, uh, Elsa." Kristoff calmed down a little. "Uh, what's up?" He wasn't sure what had brought her to the stable. Although he had certainly been spending enough time around her, he was still a little uneasy, feeling a little intimidated. The woman had Presence, no doubt about it.

"I managed to ditch my responsibilities for the rest of the afternoon, and was wondering if you would take a walk with me."

Kristoff wasn't sure what he thought she was going to say, but that certainly wasn't it. A walk? With the Queen? This was a little more unnerving than the time they spent looking for Anna recently. This was personal.

"Ah...sure." What else could he say? He racked the pitchfork, ruffled Sven's fur, and walked over to a tub to wash and dry his hands. Elsa waited patiently for him to finish, and then led the way out of the stable.

They walked across the courtyard of the castle, and through the gate that led down to the fjord. The same gate that Elsa had used to flee from her fiasco of a coronation ball. They walked in the shadow of the castle wall until they came to a bench that was placed so someone could sit and watch the gulls fly and the boats glide across the fjord. It was a pleasantly warm August day, even in the shade. They sat, Kristoff trying not to be too conspicuously uncomfortable as he fidgeted. He glanced up at the coat of arms hanging on the castle wall and chuckled, remembering the look on the Royal Herald's face when Elsa had requested and required him to produce it.

A few moments went by with nothing being said. He stole a sideways glance at Elsa. She was looking out over the fjord, a pensive look on her face, a thousand mile stare in her eyes. Kristoff tried to imagine what she saw, but he suspected he knew. A blue statue, hand raised to protect someone. He shifted a little on the bench, and Elsa came back from wherever she had been. She turned to him and said, "Sorry. Woolgathering." She drew herself up and looked into his eyes as though searching for something.

"Kristoff, Anna and I have had enough time to talk over everything that happened those three days." He wondered where she was going with this. "I have a question for you, though. Why did you start toward Hans on the ship? It looked like you were going to punch him out." She watched him closely.

Startled, he said, "Well, yeah, I was. But Anna beat me to it.", he finished wryly. Elsa surprised him with her next question.

"Why? You had no reason to." She held up her hand as he started to answer. "No, let me explain what I mean, before you answer that." She shifted on the bench, looked out over the fjord again, and started to speak in a voice so low Kristoff had to strain to hear her over the cries of the gulls and the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore.

"Anna told me all about why you rushed her back here to...Hans...that day. You both thought that 'an act of true love' meant a true love's kiss, and that meant Hans could save her with a kiss. He didn't, of course, he broke her heart and left her to die in the study." Kristoff winced. Anna had told **him** all about that conversation, too.

"But you didn't know that when you saw her running over the fjord. You were running to find her because you knew something was wrong, and you cared for her, and you wanted her to be safe. But for all you knew, Hans could have kissed her and it didn't work, for whatever reason. You didn't know he had cruelly betrayed her." Elsa looked at him. Kristoff was startled. He hadn't thought of that. He looked at Elsa, "Well, Hans tried to kill you." It sounded a little tentative, he wasn't sure now** what **he had been thinking.

She shook her head. "He had every right to." Kristoff's jaw dropped, what was she saying? Elsa looked at him sympathetically. She reached over and took Kristoff's hand. Her skin was smooth and cool to the touch, and he felt a little shiver go up his arm. "Kristoff, right then, at that moment, before Anna came running up, I was in despair. I thought I had killed her by striking ice into her heart. For that matter, you thought so, too, didn't you? You knew she was freezing to death, and you knew why." She looked at him steadily, and he squirmed a little. She was right.

Elsa continued. "For all you knew **at that moment**, the only way to save the kingdom from freezing was for me to die. The storm had been raging for hours because I was so afraid, the ice and snow were beginning to cover everything in depths that wouldn't melt in a hundred years if something wasn't done. Hans could have been the hero to save Arendelle by killing me." Kristoff's mind was reeling. She was right again. Why hadn't that occurred to him before now?

Those blue eyes of hers kept looking into the depths of his brown ones. "So, I'll ask you again. Why were you going to punch Hans?"

Kristoff went perfectly still, his thoughts whirling, trying to remember what he was feeling in that moment, after everything that seemed to be a disaster had turned into something wonderful. He dug deep into himself. He stirred. She was still looking at him with those eyes, plumbing depths he didn't know he had.

Finally, he spoke. "Hans tried to kill you." She simply cocked an eyebrow at him, not unlike the look Sven gave him sometimes. Not that she looked anything like Sven, oh, no! He took a deep breath, and continued.

"Anna loved you. I had spent those three days with her, and it was like tagging along with a whirlwind. But one thing was a constant. She loved you, and she would bring you back to Arendelle no matter what stood in her way. Even after you had struck her in the heart, she never gave up on you. She was willing to die to save you, willing to freeze to death, and willing to face that sword for you. And she did, and you didn't die. And I saw your face when you looked up at her. And I watched you touch her face in disbelief, the tears on your cheeks. And I saw you collapse in grief, holding on to Anna like you had lost the most precious thing that could exist in the world. And you had."

Another breath. "And then I saw your face when she thawed, and the joy in both your hearts, and that embrace, the touch of two women who loved each other beyond life and death."

Another breath. "And if Hans **had** killed you, because Anna was just a second too late to save you, the last thing she would have seen on this earth would have been the mutilated corpse of her beloved sister. She would have frozen in that moment, and her soul would have gone into eternity screaming 'No!' forever, a torment without end."

"THAT'S why I wanted to punch him. For the pain he almost brought her." It sounded lame in his ears, but he knew it was the truth. There was no sound but the cry of the gulls, and the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore.

Elsa looked at him, this man who was a friend to her sister, this man who she was absolutely sure now would be more than a friend. She looked forward to getting to know him better. "Thank you, Kristoff."

He looked at her oddly. "For what?"

She gave him a little smile, and he felt another shiver. "For being you."

And they sat there in silent companionship until the sun set, and then they went to look for Anna and Olaf. Dinner was waiting, and there would be chocolate for dessert.

* * *

**Author note for Chapter 1 - Punchout  
**

As much as I enjoyed watching Anna punch that jerkass Hans into the fjord, it had been bugging me that **Kristoff** had no good reason to punch Hans out. We, the audience, knew. But Kristoff didn't. Neither did Elsa, for that matter. Go back and watch Elsa's face as Anna walks over to Kristoff, then to Hans. She's puzzled. AT THAT POINT IN TIME, only Anna knew for sure and certain that Hans was a total jerkass who had betrayed her, left her to die, and was going to kill Elsa so he could take the throne. So, why did Kristoff make a move to take on Hans?

I decided to figure it out. Actually, I didn't decide. It just happened.

6/5/2014 - I made a couple of small changes to retcon this to match up with chapters 4&5, and my new story "Hour of the Wolf".


	2. A Walk In The Gardens

**2-A Walk in the Gardens**

**In which Elsa shares another big secret with Anna. Anna is shocked. Now what will they do?  
**

* * *

_"Has it only been two weeks?"_ Elsa thought to herself. It seemed like a lifetime. In many ways, it **had** been a lifetime.

Two weeks ago, she had awoken as a princess, anticipation cold in her gut, knowing that her coronation as Queen of Arendelle was only hours away. She had been terrified. For ten years, she had been as isolated as a person could be, while still being tutored in the lessons of ruling a kingdom. For three years, she had continued those lessons, anguished by the grief of losing her parents. Burdened with the certain knowledge that she would have to take up the duties of Queen Regnant at far too early an age. And for all thirteen years, she had been afraid of her powers, the magic of controlling ice and snow, powers that were known only to a very small, very trusted circle of people. A circle that did **not** include her beloved sister, Anna.

Thirteen years ago, Elsa had almost killed her little sister. Elsa was eight years old, Anna five. It had begun as just another nighttime adventure of play time for the sisters. Anna had awoken Elsa, insisting that she "Do the magic!" Since Elsa loved using her magic to play in the snow with Anna, they found themselves in the throne room, building a snowman named Olaf, skating on the frozen floor, and sledding down hills of snow created by Elsa. Then it had gone terribly wrong. Anna, a bundle of reckless energy, (She was only five!) had leapt from hill to hill, too fast for Elsa to keep up. Elsa tried to cushion Anna's landing, but slipped, and hit Anna in the head with a bolt of magic, knocking her unconscious. Elsa was afraid that she had killed her sister. Trolls had healed Anna, but altered her memories so she would not remember that Elsa had magic powers. And their parents had decided that separating them would prevent Anna from ever finding out.

In retrospect, that had been a very bad decision, no matter how loving a motivation had been driving it. It had made Elsa feel guilty in a way it was impossible for her to overcome. It kept the two sisters apart, where before they had been inseparable. It made Anna inconsolable, and then angry, to lose her best friend and sister, with no explanation as to why. Even when their parents had died at sea, Elsa wouldn't reunite with Anna, deepening the grief felt by both girls beyond measure.

Those incidents, tragic though they were, didn't even begin to cover the events triggered by Elsa's coronation as Queen: exposure of her powers in front of her subjects and visiting dignitaries; kicking off a howling winter in July that could have destroyed the Kingdom; unknowingly freezing Anna's heart in a confrontation between the sisters; actually seeing Anna frozen into an icy statue, dead by Elsa's own hand. Then, a miracle of grace when Anna's heart was thawed by an act of true love, as she had sacrificed her own life to save Elsa from dying under the sword of a would-be usurper.

That kind of experience taught Elsa that keeping secrets didn't solve anything. Running away didn't solve anything. She knew that she still had a big secret, and that Anna needed to know about it, or the kingdom would be in danger.

She hoped that her sister wouldn't be too shocked by what Elsa had to share with her.

* * *

"Kai, do you know where Anna is this morning?" Elsa was speaking to one of the members of that trusted inner circle. He had been employed by her parents since before she and Anna were born, and one of the few members of the staff retained after the King had attempted to shelter his children from the consequences of Elsa's powers.

"I believe she is down in the stables, Your Majesty. With the Ice Master." Kai responded. Was that a little hint of a smile? Elsa thought so, although she couldn't be sure it was because Kai approved of Kristoff, or because he was amused by the title Elsa had bestowed on him. Probably both.

"Thank you, Kai." and Elsa went to find her sister.

* * *

In the stable yard, Anna, Sven and Kristoff were having some fun. Kristoff waved a carrot at Sven and asked, "What do you want, Sven?" Then, in a different voice, his Sven voice, he responded to his own question. "Give me a snack." But snacks come with a price. "What's the magic word?" Kristoff makes Sven show off his reindeer etiquette. "Please!" Sven/Kristoff begs.

As Sven lunged to take the whole carrot, Kristoff reminded him that they always share. Then takes his own bite after Sven gets his half of the carrot.

Anna, who watched this exchange with a shuddering "Ewww!", laughed at the interplay. She has only known the pair for two weeks, but they have settled into a comfortable friendship. Truthfully, Anna is not sure if it will stay as only friendship, but her experience with Prince Hans had knocked some of the naive faith in 'True Love' out of her head. She was still a trusting, loving person, but she was now fully aware of the fact that 'True Love' didn't happen like a bolt of lighting. It grew, over time, as people got to know each other. She was willing to nurture that growth with Kristoff, see how they would build on the adventures they had shared.

"Hey, Feisty Pants! What's so funny?" Kristoff seemed to have settled on her nickname. If only she had as good a one for him. Iceman? No. Blondie? No. Troll Boy? No, no, no! She'd have to think about it some more.

"You realize that kissing me with reindeer slobber on your lips is out of the question, right?" Anna shot back at him, crossing her arms and attempting a haughty demeanor. It was a pretty feeble attempt.

"Reindeer slobber? I'm thinking that's not the only thing keeping kissing out of the question!" A new, sterner voice joined the conversation. There seemed to be a giggle hiding in the sternness, though.

Anna jumped. "Elsa! It's not nice to sneak up on people!" She whirled to confront her sister, who couldn't keep her laughter in any more.

"Anna, I didn't 'sneak up' on you. You were so engrossed in reindeer slobber you weren't paying attention." Elsa smirked.

Kristoff and Sven just watched this exchange. They still weren't totally relaxed in the presence of the Snow Queen. "Good morning, Your Majesty." Kristoff finally remembered his manners.

Elsa nodded at him, "Good morning, Ice Master.", just the tiniest smile on her face. She was becoming comfortable with the man. Anna had related all the adventures of the crazy quest to find Elsa and bring her back to Arendelle after the coronation ball disaster. She made a mental note that she needed to spend some time alone with Kristoff, without Anna's presence.

"If it wouldn't be too much of an imposition, Anna, do you think you could tear yourself away and spend a bit of time this morning with your sister? Come and take a walk with me in the gardens?" Elsa asked.

She hated to intrude on Anna's fun, but her own schedule had very few open spots on it. The spectacular events of the Great Winter and Great Thaw had made Elsa's settling into the job of actually being the Queen rather more...fraught...than originally anticipated. There were fences to mend, castle walls to literally mend, and relationships to re-establish with her Council of Advisors. Not to mention reassuring her people that they were not about to be turned into blocks of ice at her whim. All of that left very little personal time, and the strain was already beginning to have...consequences.

"A walk in the gardens? Sure, that would be great! We haven't walked in the gardens since...", Anna's exuberance skidded to a halt. "Ahem, I mean, I would love to walk in the gardens with anyone. Um, not that you're just anyone! You're you!"

Mentally slapping herself, Anna settled for smiling at her sister, hoping she didn't offend Elsa. After 13 years of no interaction, the sisters were still feeling very tentative in their relationship, sword sacrifices notwithstanding. Just because you were willing to die for someone didn't mean you knew how to live with them, as Anna was finding out the hard way.

Elsa, for her part, took the intent for the deed. She was enjoying getting to know her sister all over again, and was willing to tolerate quite a bit of fluff to spend time with Anna.

"Let's go, then. After lunch, I'm back into the miseries of meetings with the Advisory Council. More trade agreements!" Elsa threw in an eye roll.

Anna shuddered with some exaggeration, indicating her sympathy for Elsa's responsibilities. As Heir Presumptive, Anna sincerely hoped her sister died of old age after a reign of, oh, 75 years or so. Maybe 100 years. That way, Arendelle would never have to find out what rule by 'Queen Anna' looked like!

"Okay, I'll see you this afternoon, Kristoff! Maybe you and Sven can go find Olaf in town. He's busy sniffing flowers, sneezing his head off, and playing with the children! And, Sven, NO EATING HIS NOSE!" Anna waved goodbye at them, and followed her sister, catching up to her and entwining Elsa's arm in her own.

Kristoff just shook his head in bemusement, and held out another carrot for Sven.

* * *

The castle gardens were a marvelous place. There was enough shade that even on the hottest of days, one could sit contentedly on the benches scattered around. The plants and flowers created wonderful scents, and there were ducks and squirrels to amuse with their antics. The ducklings Anna had played with on Coronation Day were noticeably bigger, even though they eagerly nibbled at the bread crumbs the sisters had thoughtfully brought with them.

The two women sat in silence for a few minutes. Elsa seemed abstracted. Anna began to wonder if Elsa had some other motivation than simply enjoying an interlude of peace and quiet between meetings. She stirred, and began, "Elsa..." at the same moment her sister said, "Anna..." They looked at each other and giggled.

"You first." Anna said, and took Elsa's hand in her own. She loved the touch of Elsa's skin, cool and smooth. After all the long years of loneliness, she would never get enough of that touch. And Elsa seemed to feel the same way. Which, considering how many pairs of gloves she had worn out over the years, was amazing, really.

"Anna, there are some things I need to share with you.", Elsa began again.

Anna felt a little niggle of worry. Since the day of the Great Thaw, they had shared many things that had been pent up for years. Like, how Anna had been injured by Elsa so long ago. THAT revelation had struck Anna mute for quite a few minutes, as she slowly realized how she had unwittingly hurt Elsa every time she tried to reconnect with her. And how obliviously, cheerfully she had tried to bring Elsa back to Arendelle from the Ice Palace, not realizing how literal a warning _"You're not safe here!"_ was. She had blindly assumed Elsa was just spooked by the exposure of her secret. She had not understood the terror Elsa felt about the possibility of killing Anna with another moment of carelessness. A terror that was fully justified.

When the full import of that hit her, Anna was ashamed of herself, and told Elsa so. Elsa had hugged her, and said, "Anna, you can only act on information you have. Mama and Papa hid that from you, and so did I. But if I learned anything from that mess, it's that I will never conceal things like that from you ever again. Those gates, like the castle gates, will stay open!"

Anna gave her full attention to her sister. "Okay, Elsa, I'm all ears. And quite a bit of mouth, but I'll try to stay quiet and let you talk!" Anna was babbling again. Elsa snorted a little laugh and slid closer to her sister.

"Anna, I promised that I would never keep secrets from you again. There is something about me that you need to know." Elsa took a deep breath. "I'm deeply, severely injured. And it will take time and help for me to heal." She looked sidelong at her sister, waiting for a reaction.

Anna looked back at her, clearly puzzled. "Injured? How? Where? You weren't touched by the arrows or Hans' sword...you were knocked out by that chandelier, but you've been fine since..." Elsa held up her hand.

"Not physically. Here." Elsa touched her hand to her head, then to her heart. "And here."

Anna shook her head. "Elsa, I'm slow today. I'm slow pretty much every day, but today seems to be a special slow day. What do you mean?"

Elsa closed her eyes, and leaned back on the bench. She never let go of Anna's hand, though. "Anna, I'm not trying to be melodramatic or self-indulgent. This has serious implications not just for me, but for you, and the entire kingdom. It goes to the heart of whether I can be an effective Queen, or will need to abdicate."

That last word left Anna feeling almost as chilled as she had been that day on the fjord. Abdicate? No, no, no, no, no! On her worst day, Elsa was a better Queen than Anna could ever hope to be! What is she talking about? "Elsa, you're overreacting, you're fine, you're doing a great job as Queen, I could never come close, you have got to be kidding..."

Turning to her sister, and grasping both her hands, Elsa tried to calm Anna down. "Anna. Please. Don't panic. We can get through this thing, together. But that's why I need you to understand what's going on. I need your help, again." Anna took a few deep breaths, then nodded.

Continuing, Elsa said, "When I said injured, I meant exactly that. Anna, if you think of everything we have gone through in the last 13 years, the amazing thing is that we are both still functional. Especially me. I'm not trying to minimize anything that's happened to you, believe me! But, objectively, in any real sense of the word, I am more damaged." Elsa grimaced. "Not that this is a contest." Anna started to protest, but Elsa stopped her. "I know, I know! I seem to be doing fine. The kingdom seems to be willing to give me the chance to be a good ruler; you and I are beginning to be real sisters again; I can even touch people without gloves on anymore!" Elsa raised their hands, still entwined, and held Anna's against her own cheeks. "Do you know how good that feels after all this time?" Elsa whispered.

She sat back again, her left hand holding Anna's right. She let out a deep sigh. "In public, I can be serene and regal, carrying on learned conversations with advisers and visiting dignitaries. Why, I can even mingle in the town marketplace without running away in fear. In public, I seem to be the very picture of good Queen Elsa." Another sigh. "In private, not so much. I have panic attacks. Usually after flashbacks to...certain events. I can hardly breathe. I curl up on the floor, trying to make myself as small as possible, crying uncontrollably. If I can get myself to sleep, I have nightmares about...certain events. My powers manifest themselves without my control. Sometimes, the guilt and shame is so overwhelming, I...I think that even abdication isn't enough to make it better."

Elsa hung her head. Anna's thoughts were whirling. She had no idea Elsa was going through this! Wait, what? Of course she didn't know...but NOW Elsa was telling her all of this. Because...she said she needed Anna's help!

"Elsa, what do you mean when you say abdication isn't enough? You can't mean you think you'd be better off de..." Anna couldn't finish the sentence. NO!

Elsa turned to look into Anna's eyes, pleading with her to understand. "Anna, this is hard for me. So very hard to admit all of this, to anyone. But, remember when you stepped in front of Hans' sword? There was a reason I made no move to escape that sword myself. I thought you were already dead, by my hand. In that moment, death was a welcome oblivion, a release from the guilt for everything I had done to you, right up to killing you. Those thoughts of release come back to me sometimes, when everything just seems so overwhelming." Tears formed in Elsa's eyes, but did not run down her cheeks. Yet.

Anna nodded, numb in her understanding. "What can I do? You said you needed my help."

Elsa released a long, shuddering breath. "I'm afraid I'm losing control again. I need to hide this from public eyes. Otherwise, political realities being what they are, you and the kingdom would be in danger if our enemies, or even some of our friends, thought that I was damaged goods, and they tried to take advantage of that. But I need to fix this. I need to share this with someone I can trust, someone who can help me work through this, and heal, if healing is possible. I need you to be my strength, when in the darkest night, despair is gnawing at my soul. That's why I'm sharing this with you."

"Oh, Elsa! Of course I'll be there for you." Anna exclaimed. "But, what exactly can I do?" Bandaging up a bloody cut from an arrow was simple. How do you heal something invisible?

"Just be there for me. I have no real idea how to work through this. But, maybe, if you and I spent time talking about everything that's happened, maybe the pain and fear would gradually diminish. If I felt safe, with you, talking about it, even if I broke down, you'd be there to help me deal with it, convince me that it couldn't hurt me anymore. You can help me safely face those frightening...events so I can regain control of that fear. We already know that _'Conceal, don't feel.'_ is a losing strategy." Elsa snorted. "That word, 'events'. That's a symptom; I'm avoiding speaking plainly. I need to just look that fear in the eye, and spit defiance in its face. But I can't do that alone, not yet. I need your courage again."

Anna started to assure Elsa, but Elsa stopped her. "Anna, I know you are willing. Heavens, compared to dying, this must seem simple! But it won't be. There'll be days I'll push you away, withdraw from you. You'll want to press me, but just let me have a little space, and let me know you'll still be there when I'm ready to talk. Don't get discouraged if I get angry, or annoyed, or seem indifferent. This won't be fixed in a day, or a week, or a month. I'm going to...WE'RE going to be working on this for a long while. And you will be the only one I can confide in, the only one who knows how vulnerable I am. This time,** you'll** be the one with a secret to protect, one that you can't share with anyone." Now the tears did fall.

Anna put her arm around Elsa's shoulders, and pulled her close, soothing her while she cried. "You and me, together, we'll always be together, you and me." She whispered. It was a silly little song they had made up when they were little.

Elsa looked up, wiping the tears from her cheeks, and answered, "Up or down together, princess crown together, always be together, you and me!" And for the first time in forever, Elsa felt optimistic about the future.

There was a low rumble; Anna's stomach was telling them lunch was overdue. Elsa had to laugh. "Come on! I'm sure we can convince the kitchen to feed us! Then I need to get to my meetings."

Anna laughed, too. "Better you than me! I'd rather muck out Sven's stall!" and the two sisters ran into the castle, into the future, hand in hand, together.

* * *

**Author note for Chapter 2-A Walk In The Gardens**

The happy ending in the movie was well earned, but leaves a whole bunch of questions unanswered. This chapter explores one such question, and what our heroines decide to do about it.

Jennifer Lee has admitted that Elsa has anxiety issues, at the very least. A superficial skimming of some medical sites might lead one to believe she has PTSD.

Unfortunately, in the early 19th century, There Are No Therapists, so the girls will have to figure it out on their own.


	3. Take A Hike

**3-Take a Hike!**

It was a few days past the events that went down in Arendelle history as "The Great Winter in July" followed by "The Great Thaw". For those with a bent for black humor, it might be known as "That Time the Queen Went All Ice Crazy". The people of Arendelle were still fond of their Queen, even if she had nearly killed them all - and did kill her sister, if only temporarily. An interesting summer, to say the least. Certainly one that stood out in the fairly mundane history of the peaceful kingdom.

Elsa, aka "The Queen That Went All Ice Crazy", was trying to calm her sister down. It wasn't going well.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Anna wasn't **quite** screaming, but only missed it by a few decibels. Elsa still didn't have an answer to that question that she herself was satisfied with, so it was hard to be convincing to Anna.

This was all Kristoff's fault.

* * *

The day after Elsa had created an ice rink for everyone to have a skating party, Anna and Kristoff were walking around town, enjoying the day. Sven was plodding along amiably, occasionally begging for carrots from Kristoff. Olaf was skipping from market stall to market stall, sniffing flowers and sometimes sneezing his head off. Literally. He would usually beat Sven to catching up to it. Sven just never gave up on that carrot nose. It had become almost a game for the two.

Kristoff was still feeling his way around the ... friendship that he felt towards Anna. The first day they had met, he had been incredulous that she had wanted to become engaged to a man she had just met. Events had proved that Kristoff had been right; Hans had been both crazy and devious, not great marriage material. The next two days had been an intense experience, to say the least, but the result was that Kristoff realized that he had become fond of her. It seemed that she might feel the same about him, but they were both willing to let things happen over time. At least one of the lessons they had both learned was that true love took time to grow.

In spite of his feelings for Anna, Kristoff was still wary and a little afraid of her sister, Queen Elsa. He knew Elsa could be dangerous. When they had confronted Elsa in her Ice Palace, Anna had pushed her into a panic attack that resulted in a blast of ice magic to Anna's heart. If the ice shard weren't removed, Anna would freeze solid, forever. Fortunately, Kristoff knew what to do. He took Anna to his family, the trolls. GrandPabbie, the eldest troll, had once healed a little girl who had been hurt by ice magic, and that little girl had turned out to have been Anna, so Kristoff was confident he could do it again.

It had proved to be more complicated this time around, although in the end everything had worked out. Kristoff knew that it was Anna's love for Elsa that had saved them both, but he still had reservations about the Queen. He thought it might be a good time to have a talk with Anna about those reservations. If for no other reason than friends generally should be open with each other about certain ... feelings. Like, for example, the feeling that their friend's big sister scared the ice out of him. Unfortunately, Kristoff wasn't the smoothest talker in the kingdom, being raised by trolls and all. He had been pretty much a loner before he had met Anna.

"So, Anna, could we talk about some of the stuff that happened?" Kristoff thought that was an innocent enough start.

"Sure! Like what?" Anna was skipping from stall to stall with as much enthusiasm as Olaf, chatting with anyone who showed the slightest inclination to talk to her.

"Well, like, how the Queen almost froze you to death." Hmm...maybe not so smooth. It didn't seem to faze Anna, though.

"Yeah, what about it?" Anna had spotted a chocolate vendor, and was making a beeline toward his booth.

"Well, um...didn't that bother you?"

"Not really. I mean, I was scared, sure, but I knew she did it by accident. And I didn't want to die. But I still loved her. And it worked out in the end, right? So, now we can just be friends and sisters again, and get caught up on everything we missed for thirteen years." Anna paid the merchant and popped a chocolate into her mouth. "Want one?"

"Soo...how is that catching up going for you?" Kristoff was getting nervous, wondering how to best phrase the real question he had for Anna, hoping the two sisters had already discussed it.

"We haven't had a lot of time, yet, Kristoff. It's only been a couple of days, and she had to have quite a few meetings with her Council and everybody, apologizing for the whole mess and reassuring everyone that everything was under control now and she wouldn't be destroying the kingdom and freezing everybody to death again. We've been talking some at night, before we go to sleep, though. Thirteen years is a long time, after all." She finished, "I'm just glad to have her back."

"Anna, I'm just concerned about you." Kristoff started again. "I don't want you to get hurt a third time."

This finally got Anna to focus on something other than chocolate. "What do you mean? Elsa only hurt me once. And she didn't mean for it to happen. It was an accident."

Kristoff kept digging his hole, not really listening to what Anna was saying, "Well, you would think she would have learned from the first time. Although you guys were pretty young." He said this thoughtfully. Not thoughtfully enough. Being thoughtful** enough **would have stopped him from continuing this conversation the minute he realized Anna had no idea what he was talking about.

"WHAT first time?" Anna snapped at him with a fiercely quizzical look. Now he REALLY had Anna's attention. Oops.

"Well, uh, remember when I said I knew the love experts could fix you because I had seen them do it before?" She nodded stiffly. The look on Anna's face started to register with Kristoff and he wondered if it was too late to find an excuse to go muck out Sven's stall.

"Uh, well, when I was eight, Grandpabbie cured a little girl who had been hit in the head with ice magic. He said it was lucky that she hadn't been hit in the heart. She was there with her parents and another little girl." Anna was very, very close to him now.

"What's that got to do with me?" she asked.

"Um, uh, well, when the four of them came to the valley, the trolls called the father 'Your Majesty' and I heard some of the other trolls say 'It's the king!'" Kristoff finished lamely. "So, I'm guessing that was you and Elsa and your parents."

Anna just stared. Her face had completely drained of blood and her freckles stood out stark against her pale skin.

"You are just telling me this NOW?" Anna's voice was loud. It was very, very loud. Kristoff started backing away as she came closer.

"I ... I ... didn't really think about it until after ... you know ... after ... she froze you again. It was a long time ago, I was only eight, ah ..." Kristoff realized he was talking to her retreating form. Rapidly retreating. Running. Clearly heading for the castle. He gulped. "Oh, boy, I think I just screwed that up really badly." Sven just looked at him. _"Yeah, I think you did."_

* * *

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" Anna wasn't **quite** screaming, but only missed it by a few decibels. Elsa still didn't have an answer to that question that she herself was satisfied with, so it was hard to be convincing to Anna.

"We were trying to protect you." Elsa was defensive, she didn't handle confrontation well yet. Certainly not with her sister.

Elsa was far more introverted than Anna, having had fewer opportunities to socialize with people. After the accident where she had injured Anna, the castle had become far less open. Elsa had only carefully controlled exposure to tutors and advisers. She was going to rule the kingdom some day, after all. No one expected it to be so soon, however. Certainly her parents had no expectations that she would ascend the throne at 21. Fate was cruel.

Anna had more freedom around the castle, although her contact with the town was still limited. She also had tutors, although her training was not as intense as that of her elder sister.

The critical person missing from both girls' lives was ... each other. They had been inseparable playmates and best friends until the accident. The separation was intended to avoid another incident. Not so much because their parents didn't trust Elsa, although they could have done a much, much better job of explaining that to her. But because Anna was just such an exuberant, daring child that she would probably bring it on herself, just like the first time.

Elsa had intended to explain all of this to Anna, once they had a chance to get reaquainted and talk over all the missing years. It wasn't that she was avoiding it, although she still had pangs of guilt when she thought about that time. But she had decided it was a subject to be broached calmly, perhaps over lunch or lots of chocolate. Unfortunately the conversation, **this** conversation had begun when Anna had come storming into the castle gardens where Elsa was enjoying a brief respite between meetings. As far as Elsa had known, she had been in town with Kristoff, enjoying the day. So being confronted by a very upset and angry sister caught Elsa completely by surprise and unprepared.

"Elsa, so THAT'S why you were so afraid? Why you were so panicked when I came to the Ice Palace? Because that was the SECOND time you almost killed me?" Anna was insistent.

Elsa wrung her hands and couldn't bring herself to look at her sister.

"Anna, Mama and Papa took us to the trolls because Papa knew that they might have a cure for the magic. One of the trolls altered your memories of us playing together so you wouldn't remember that I had magic, or that I had hurt you." Elsa tried again to explain this to Anna in a quiet, rational way, hoping her sister would calm down. Anna just glared at her.

"Then, after we ... lost Mama and Papa, I was still too afraid of hurting you to tell you. I was so scared that I couldn't control my powers, that any small act of carelessness could hurt you again or even kill you." Elsa bitterly remembered how she couldn't even control herself long enough to attend the memorial for their parents, how she had cowered and wept in her room, listening to Anna outside her door. She looked at her sister.

Anna seemed to be a little calmer, although nowhere close to being her usual bubbly self.

"And that worked so well that I pushed you over the edge into an obvious display of your powers in front of everyone at your coronation ball." She snapped at Elsa in a biting tone and shook her head.

"And then to put the cherry in the chocolate cordial, I drove you straight into a panic attack at the ice palace. With the exact result you had been trying to avoid for thirteen years." Anna threw up her hands in frustration.

Elsa was pacing in front of the garden bench where Anna was sitting. Anna looked at her sister, really looked at her, and abruptly realized that Elsa was terrified again. She looked exactly as she had in the Ice Palace, just before Anna had pushed her into total hysteria. _"What have I done?"_ Anna thought with dismay. _ "This isn't what I wanted. I didn't want to hurt her, I just wanted to know what happened."_

Anna took a deep breath and forced herself to speak calmly. "Elsa, I'm sorry. Please, sit down. I didn't mean to come barging in here and start screaming at you." She reached out to her sister. "Please, please, let's just ... talk this over."

Elsa slowed her pacing, stopped, turned to Anna. She also took a deep breath, and finally, slowly, sat down next to her.

"How ... how did you find out? I was going to tell you, we just hadn't gotten that far along into getting to be with each other again..." Elsa's voice was soft, shaky. She was trembling and Anna could tell she was on the verge of tears.

"Kristoff told me." Anna forced herself to speak in a level voice. She reached over and took Elsa's hand. Sheepishly, she continued "I'll be honest; I got so angry I didn't stay around to hear the whole story. I think we'll need to corner him and get all of it out of him. Well, his side of it, anyway. I guess you have some memory of the meeting with Pabbie..." and trailed off as Elsa stiffened. She did indeed have memories of that day, memories seared into her heart.

"Elsa, please. Don't be afraid any more. We've come through it, no matter how botched it was, we are here, together. I love you, and I know you love me." The anger had drained from Anna, leaving her able to focus on Elsa again.

The two women did love each other deeply, or they simply wouldn't have survived the cruel events they had lived through. But they had been separated for thirteen years, and people change when they grow up. They were still tentative in reaching out to each other; their relationship was still fragile. They didn't really know each other, know the tender places where a wrong word could cut deeply or open up a wound still raw.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Anna was coming to a dawning realization that she had badly misinterpreted everything that she had believed for thirteen years. Suddenly, now that she knew about the first time, she started reliving the events of her life and began to understand just how callous she must have seemed to Elsa. How every time she had tried to play with her sister, it just twisted a knife in her gut, and magnified the guilt and shame Elsa felt about hurting Anna.

_"What was I doing to her?"_ Anna was thinking. _"Even seeing that white streak in my hair must have just reminded her of what she had done." _ Anna began to be ashamed of herself, ashamed of her selfishness. She had always acted as though she was the one with a grievance because Elsa and her parents had shut her out. But they really had been doing it out of love for Anna, no matter how much it hurt them, they were trying to protect her. Elsa was trying to protect her, without regard for the pain in her own heart to be without her sister.

"Anna, how could you be such an oblivious fool!" She said this out loud, not realizing it until Elsa turned to her and stroked her face gently.

"No, Anna, no, you can only act on information you have. Mama and Papa hid that from you, and so did I. But if I learned anything from this mess, it's that I will never conceal things like that from you ever again. " Elsa hugged Anna as tightly as she had that day on the fjord. "We need to promise each other that we will be open and trust each other. No more doors separating us." They stayed like that for a bit, drawing comfort from the touch of each other. Anna finally stirred and looked at Elsa.

"Elsa?"

"Yes?'

"How do you feel about taking a little hike?"

* * *

It was quiet on the mountainside. Very quiet. The only sound was their footsteps, trudging along the trail to the Valley of Living Rock.

Anna had gone looking for Kristoff and informed him that they were taking a little hike to see GrandPabbie. She was still ... annoyed with him, but her talk with Elsa had made her more sensitive to seeing other people's viewpoints. Kristoff, for his part, was happy to guide her back to see his family, hopeful that he could make up for his clumsy attempt to talk to her about the freezing thing. He was still a little uneasy with the third member of the party, and was not altogether successful in hiding it.

Queen Elsa hadn't said a word since they left Arendelle. The look on her face would have been suitable for someone walking up the steps of a guillotine for execution. Kristoff couldn't figure out what that was all about, but Anna seemed to know. Her glances at Elsa were filled with concern, and she would occasionally take Elsa's hand for a while as they walked, speaking softly to her. Kristoff took care to stay out of earshot. Eavesdropping would have been impolite, and he was already on thin ice.

They entered the area that looked like an amphitheatre, filled with large rocks and boulders. Only they weren't rocks and boulders. "Hi, everyone!" Kristoff called out, and suddenly the rocks and boulders started rolling to surround the three. Unfolding into a crowd of trolls, someone shouted "Kristoff's home!" This was echoed by the entire group.

One of the smaller trolls leaped into Kristoff's hands, showing off a fire crystal. Another tugged at Kristoff's pants, asking if he wanted his clothes washed. Kristoff swung the little troll around, then put him down, and explained he would be keeping his clothes on.

Anna watched this with some amusement, it was almost the same happy chaos that she had experienced when she had come here with Kristoff a few days ago. Elsa was trembling, though, and Anna sensed her discomfort. Her memories of this place had to be very different than Anna's.

Anna recognized Bulda, Kristoff's adoptive mother. "Kristoff's home! And this time he brought TWO GIRLS!" Anna and Kristoff looked at each other, and both put their faces in their hands and groaned. Like all mothers, Bulda wanted nothing but the best for her boy, and a good marriage was the goal.

Her husband Cliff waddled up to Kristoff and elbowed him in the ribs with a knowing wink. "Always knew my boy had what it takes to satisfy more than one girl! Ready to be trollfully wedded this time? A threesome is a little unusual, but nothing we haven't seen before!"

Kristoff shook his head and said, "No! We're still not getting married! And we have another problem we need to talk over with GrandPabbie. Is he around?"

In response to this, the crowd of trolls created a path for Grandpabbie to roll up and look up at Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa. "Your Majesty!" Pabbie bowed to her, and all the other trolls blinked. They hadn't recognized her. Remembering their manners, they all bowed and echoed Pabbie's words. "Your Majesty."

Elsa managed to nod her head in acknowledgement, but clearly couldn't speak. Anna moved next to her and entwined her arm in Elsa's. She could feel Elsa was still tense and trembling.

"Kristoff, there is strong magic here. Why have you come?" Pabbie looked at the two sisters as he said this.

Anna spoke up. "Pabbie, when I was here a few days ago, you told me about the ice shard put in my heart by my sister." Elsa flinched, but Anna just patted her hand to try and comfort her. "You told us only an act of true love could thaw a frozen heart. It did."

Pabbie nodded. "I can see that."

"But that wasn't the first time I had come here, was it?" She asked. GrandPabbie sighed and shook his head.

"Why didn't you tell me that when we came? Kristoff didn't tell me either until just today." Her anger was coming back, she tried to fight it down. If for no other reason than it was making Elsa even more unhappy than she already was.

GrandPabbie waved them over to a low shelf of rock. "Please, sit, this will take a bit to explain." The group did so, Anna and Elsa still clinging to each other, Kristoff a little apart from Anna. This also served to put them almost at eye level with the elderly troll.

"Your Majesty, I owe you a profound apology." He addressed Elsa, surprising everyone.

She stirred and looked directly at him for the first time. "For what?" she asked.

"When your parents brought you here so many years ago, I failed in my service to you all. I was not sufficiently clear in explaining what you needed to do to control your magic. If I had spoken with more clarity, your parents would have understood that the fear I was warning them about was YOUR fear, not the fear of others." He then looked at Anna.

"Because of my failure, you were never told about what happened. You lost your sister, and had no idea why. I had altered your memories to remove the magic, and make it seem that you had just played together like any two ordinary children. Your parents had the best intentions for both of you, but only succeeded in letting Elsa's fear control her, resulting in her powers manifesting poorly."

Anna thought about this. "Can you restore my memories?"

"Alas, I cannot. Too much time has passed. Your entire life from that time has been influenced by those memories, and they have been entwined with all your other memories. To alter them now would destroy your mind, would destroy the person you have become." This seemed to fill Anna with dismay, but Pabbie went on.

"The best way for you to recover your memories is ... your sister." This startled both women.

"What ... what do you mean?" This was Elsa, her voice soft.

"Your Majesty, you never stopped loving your sister. Everything you had done for thirteen years was to protect her from what you feared was a great danger. And she continued to love you, even though she did not understand why you shut her out. That love saved you both. Now, you have a great deal of sharing to do, to try to fill in those many years apart." Pabbie looked at the two with sympathy in his dark eyes.

Elsa nodded and squeezed Anna's hand.

"As you begin to grow closer, to become acquainted with the woman your sister has grown into, you need to share your memories of those years before the accident. Share the fun you had, and the joy you took in playing with your power to delight Anna. Yes, and even share the terror you felt when you hurt her. Let her share that pain, so that it may be lessened, and fade away until it is faint enough to no longer trouble your soul."

Anna hugged her sister closer.

For the first time in all those years Elsa felt a stirring of ... hope. Hope that she could really overcome all the fear and guilt and pain and that she and Anna would in fact become as close as they should be. Even after Anna's sacrifice, and the realization that love really could thaw, there was still a small, niggling doubt in Elsa's heart. Pabbie's words finally put that doubt to rest.

Elsa smiled, and addressed the troll. "GrandPabbie, thank you. I think that your words are perfectly clear this time. This time we really will heal. Together."

Elsa and Anna stood up. So did Kristoff, drawing away slightly as he did so. As introspective as Elsa had been on the trip up, she had been aware of Kristoff's discomfort in her presence. She couldn't have an Ice Master that was afraid of her, could she?

"I think we can hike on back to Arendelle now, don't you?" She smiled again, and reached out with her free hand to Kristoff.

"Come on, you can do it!" Her eyes twinkled. She was teasing him, and he knew it. Chagrined, he took her hand. Her skin was soft and smooth and cool, and the touch of it sent a little shiver up his arm.

Elsa nodded to GrandPabbie, and to the rest of the trolls. "I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other in the future. I'm looking forward to it."

The trolls bowed, rolled away, and left the three alone in a valley of rocks.

Anna was the first to begin tugging her sister and Kristoff back toward home.

"Let's go. I don't know about you, but I'm starving!" and her stomach rumbled to punctuate the statement. Elsa laughed and Kristoff chuckled.

"Yeah, we definitely need to get back to the castle now. Right now!" Kristoff teased her with her own words from the first night they met. She laughed in response, and the little group began their hike back to Arendelle.

Elsa hoped that Olaf and Sven hadn't gotten into any mischief in their absence. It had only been for an afternoon. How much trouble could they cause in that short a time?

* * *

**Author Note for Chapter 3 - Take A Hike!**

In which Kristoff puts his foot in his mouth, and then has to take a long walk that way. Anna finally finds out what Elsa was so afraid of.

In the movie, didn't anyone wonder why neither Kristoff nor Pabbie bothered mentioning to Anna that this was not the first time she had come to the valley of the trolls? If you download the shooting script, there is a notation in that scene where Kristoff tells Anna he's seen them do it before: "He looks her over, remembering the moment he saw the trolls heal her as a child."

So Jennifer Lee certainly had him realizing this wasn't the first time.

In any case, I thought this was another one of those little cracks or crevices that the movie glided over, and felt a story coming on.


	4. Walking Through Walls Part 1

**Part 1 - Walking Through Walls**

Elsa stood on the wall of the castle, looking out over the fjord, looking in the direction she had fled on her coronation day. It was late in the evening and all was quiet around the castle. Everyone was preparing for sleep after another busy day. Elsa should be doing the same, but she was still dealing with myriad details of cleanup after the Great Thaw, and one particular detail was so bothersome that she had avoided it rather diligently.

Her sister Anna found her there. Anna became worried when Elsa missed dinner. It had only been a few days since the two of them had discussed what Elsa called her 'injury', and Anna was concerned that Elsa's emotions had overcome her and she was trying to cope with them alone. Checking her bedroom and study had come up empty, but Kai had noticed the intent look of purpose on Anna's face, asked what she was looking for, and suggested that she might find her sister on the castle wall overlooking the fjord.

When Anna climbed up the long stairways to the castle parapets and saw her sister there, she wondered for the thousandth time how Kai managed to know absolutely everything about the comings and goings around the castle. She approached Elsa.

"Elsa?" Anna asked. She wasn't sure Elsa heard her. She gently touched her sister on the arm. "Elsa?" she tried again.

Elsa didn't respond, but did reach over and cover Anna's hand with her own. There was clearly something bothering her. They stood there for a few minutes in silence.

At last Elsa turned to her sister and said, "I'm fine. Just brooding."

Anna snorted. "Tell me something I don't know. I've never seen you up here before. What are you brooding about, and why climb the castle walls to do it?" Elsa just kept looking down to a pile of stone that spilled out from the base of the large round tower at one corner. Anna was mystified.

"What's that? Is the wall collapsed?" Anna hadn't ever been in that part of the castle. She didn't even know what was there. Storage rooms, maybe?

"Yes. Yes, the wall collapsed." Elsa responded, her voice flat and lifeless. Anna wrapped her arm in Elsa's, pulling her close.

"Elsa, what's wrong?" She could feel her sister trembling. She was clearly in the grip of some strong emotion. "Please, Elsa, you asked me to help you, and I will, if you only tell me what's going on."

Elsa sighed heavily. "Oh, Anna, I never wanted you to find out about this."

"Uh, Elsa, haven't we been down that particular road already? And learned that keeping secrets was a really bad approach to life, the universe, and everything?" Anna turned her sister to face her. "Elsa, please, I'm not ever abandoning you, no matter what horrible thing you think you need to protect me from."

Elsa's shoulders slumped. "I know, I know. We're caught up as best we can since the Thaw, but there haven't been enough hours in the day to get through everything that's happened in the last thirteen years." She straightened up and looked at Anna.

"And there are still some things that happened during the Freeze that I've avoided talking about." She turned away, but kept a tight grip on Anna's hand. "Come on, I'll show you." She led Anna back inside the castle.

They walked down several staircases, and through a door leading into a dim corridor that ended at another stairwell. Following that to the very lowest level of the castle, they found themselves outside a broken down door leading into a ... dungeon? Anna was bewildered. She hadn't realized the castle **had** a dungeon. This was the 19th century! Who put people in dungeons in these modern times? It wasn't the middle ages, after all.

The two women stepped carefully over the debris until they were inside the cell. There were more broken stones lying on the floor, and the outer wall had a large gaping hole in it, with more stone blocks scattered inside and outside. Anna realized this was the place Elsa had stared at from the castle wall. Anna could see some chains fastened to a hasp in the floor, and there were two twisted, broken metal shackles laying near the gap in the wall. They were strange shackles, though. They almost looked like ... mittens instead of the circlets that would normally go around a prisoner's wrists.

Elsa looked at them like they were poisonous snakes. She was still shaking, Anna could feel it through her hand. Anna looked around the cell, and noticed a stone bench against the wall opposite the gap. She tugged on her sister's hand, pulling her over to sit on the bench. She had to kick aside a blanket laying on the floor, but they both sat, Elsa leaning into Anna for support.

"Okay, Elsa, it's okay. What's wrong? Tell me now. What is this place? I've never been here, and I didn't even know we had a dungeon." She spoke gently, stroking Elsa's hand, trying to soothe her.

"We didn't. This was just another storage room until ... three years ago." Anna had to strain to hear her, Elsa's voice was so soft.

"Three years ago? That doesn't make any sense. Why would Papa build a dungeon?"

"He didn't. I did." Her tone was flat, dispassionate. Elsa couldn't have astonished Anna more completely if she had grown wings and flown out over the fjord.

"What?" Anna wasn't sure she had heard correctly. "What do you mean? Why did you think we needed a dungeon?"

Elsa stood up, walked over to the broken manacles, and kicked one viciously. "Just in case." A tear trickled down her cheek.

Anna was puzzled. "Just in case of wha... " her voice trailed off as a suspicion started to grow in her mind. "Elsa?"

"Elsa, no, you didn't build this for yourself?" Anna's heart almost broke as she realized the depth of desperation that had driven the woman to something like this.

"Come on, we're leaving. I won't have you ... wallowing in whatever made you think this was ever a good idea." Anna hooked her arm in Elsa's and led her sister out of the dungeon.

* * *

The castle was quiet as they went back to the residence. Elsa didn't need anyone to see her in this state. Anna opened the door to her room and led her sister over to the comfortably cushioned window bay. After getting Elsa settled, Anna lit several candles on the dresser, and made sure the door was closed. They needed privacy for this discussion. Anna brought a small box over to the window bay with her as she settled in next to Elsa.

"Here. I don't share this with just anybody! Not that you're just anybody! You're a special anybody! Oh, never mind, just take one!" and opened the box. Elsa looked inside, and a small smile broke through her depression.

"You would sacrifice your chocolate? For me?" and Anna felt relief as her sister responded to the offering. They each took a piece and enjoyed the rich taste. The gesture and the chocolate seemed to have broken Elsa's dark mood and Anna snuggled next to her, took her hand, and said, "Okay, talk to me."

After a few minutes, Elsa began. "I've told you how Papa had taught me to repeat 'Conceal, don't feel.' and wear gloves to try to control my magic?" Anna nodded. Elsa went on. "Well, that seemed to work only ... moderately well. Then we lost Mama and Papa." Another nod from Anna. She remembered knocking on Elsa's door, hoping that they would reunite in their shared grief. But she had been disappointed yet again.

"I completely lost control of my emotions and my magic. That's why I didn't dare come to the memorial with you. That's why I didn't dare to even open the door to you that day. I literally froze; myself, the room, the air, everything. I was so scared when I realized how out of control I was." Elsa looked into Anna's eyes. "I decided I had to do something to protect the kingdom, to protect YOU if I couldn't reliably control my magic."

"There were only three people who knew the secret: Kai, Gerda and the Admiral." This revelation stunned Anna. She hadn't realized that ANYONE had known Elsa's secret before her display at the coronation ball. Elsa shook her head at Anna's expression. "Anna, there had to be SOMEONE who knew besides Mama and Papa. It would have been irresponsible for there to be no one." Elsa looked away guiltily. "If only to explain it to you if you suddenly had to ... to ascend the throne."

This announcement offended Anna. "Wouldn't it have been simpler to just tell ME? None of you thought to trust ME?" Anna fumed, and started to pull away from Elsa but Elsa wouldn't let go of her hand. Indignantly, Anna went on "You would trust me with the throne, but not your secret. That doesn't make any sense!"

Elsa's face fell, and Anna realized that she had torn open a wound that was only partially healed.

"I did trust you with the throne. I knew that in spite of your insistence that you were just a 'spare' that you studied diligently, and paid close attention to Papa and your tutors." Elsa tried to explain. "Anna, I've already apologized for that awful mistake. I can't change the past. You have every right to be angry, but ... I thought you had forgiven me for that."

"Elsa, I have forgiven you. It's our parents that I'm not sure I've forgiven. I'm sorry to say that, it's just that sometimes I get so angry at Mama and Papa for letting you wallow alone in that guilt and shame for so long. If they had only trusted me..." her voice trailed off. She shook her head, fought down her bitterness and said, "Please, go on, I shouldn't have interrupted you." she said and cuddled closer to Elsa.

With that reassurance, Elsa continued her tale. "Kai and Gerda were like foster parents to us since we were babies, and the Admiral's job is to protect Arendelle at any cost. And that's what I was trying to do-protect Arendelle. The kingdom needed a ruler that could function without cowering in her bedroom. I wasn't sure I could be that ruler. Worse, if I did manage to meet with people, the possibility that I could hurt them the way I had hurt you was a constant worry. I had to have a strategy."

Elsa took a deep breath. "I knew Kai and Gerda would never go along with what I had decided to do, but the Admiral would understand the danger and be able to put the good of Arendelle ahead of any feelings for me. So I called him into my study one day when I was sure I was in control, and told him what I wanted. He wasn't happy about it, but reluctantly agreed to arrange it. Very reluctantly."

* * *

Elsa walked back and forth in front of the window in her study with a measured pace. She breathed slowly and deeply. This meeting could not, must not be marred by any uncontrolled demonstration of her magic. It was important that she convince this man to help her.

A soft knock on the door. "Your Majesty?"

"Come in, please." Elsa responded, and sat at her desk.

She hated that she was being addressed by that title, but her father was ... gone, and that meant that she was now the Queen of Arendelle. It would be three more years before she came of age and there would be a formal coronation, but she had to accept the reality of the situation. She looked down at her black and grey mourning dress with sadness. Her first decree as Queen had been to announce a 30 day mourning period for her parents, with all the officials of Arendelle to dress accordingly, and the kingdom was draped with black bunting on official buildings.

Admiral Mikael Naismith, the highest ranking officer in the Royal Arendelle Navy, entered her study. Elsa had observed Council meetings secretly at her father's instructions, and knew that the King had a high opinion of the admiral's competence and loyalty. Her own observations had let her form a similar opinion of the man.

He bowed. "Your Majesty."

She waved him to seat himself in a chair positioned in front of her desk. "Admiral, thank you for seeing me so promptly."

The Admiral nodded. "Your Majesty, forgive my presumption, but when the Queen summons one of her subjects, they generally present themselves immediately."

He smiled, hoping to put the young woman at ease. He could tell she was uncomfortable. In truth, he had not dealt with her in person at all since she was very young. Her contacts were carefully limited to a small, select group of tutors. He knew exactly why that was. He wondered why she had summoned him. Her absence at the memorial for her parents had not gone unnoticed.

Elsa was silent for a moment, cleared her throat, and finally spoke. "Admiral, I am going to make a request of you, and you may find that request shocking. But I can assure you that I have given this much careful thought, and I know it is something necessary for the safety of Arendelle."

"I know that you are privy to my ... secret. My father had discussed this with me, and explained that in the unhappy circumstance that something happened to him and my mother, it was necessary for someone to know of my magic, to help me continue to develop control of it. " She frowned. "And now that circumstance has come to pass, and I must turn to you for assistance."

The Admiral simply sat in silence, a small nod to encourage her to continue.

"I feel that it is necessary to build a cell that would be capable of confining me and limiting my ability to use my magic in the event that I cannot control the power and become a threat to all of Arendelle." She maintained an even tone of voice, as devoid of emotion as if she were simply asking for another cup of tea. Her facial expression was equally impassive. The Admiral had no inkling of the iron control holding her emotions in check.

"A cell, Your Majesty?" He wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. He hoped he had misunderstood.

"Yes, Admiral, a cell, a dungeon if you like. With manacles designed to cover my hands, which seem to be the main conduit by which my magic manifests itself." Elsa maintained her equanimity. "This would be a last resort, if I, or you and my other advisers, were to become convinced that there was no other way to protect ... people ... from injury."

"Your Majesty, surely..." the Admiral began, but stopped as Elsa raised her hand and shook her head.

"I know this seems extreme, perhaps even bizarre, but I do not ask this lightly." Her face took on the slightest hint of grim determination. "My responsibility to my people and my kingdom is to protect them from harm. It may seem unlikely that a young woman of 18 could do such harm, but neither you nor I can fully judge to what extent my power will grow." She looked him directly in the eye. "I must do what I think is prudent to safeguard Arendelle from the most unlikely of threats."

Her expression and her tone of voice softened into one of pleading. "And I must have your help to do so. Please, Admiral, I have no one else to turn to now." The Admiral was known as "Hard as Nails" to the troops, but he could not harden himself against the plea of this grieving, vulnerable woman.

The Admiral cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, I assure you that you can rely on my utmost discretion. Your father trusted me with many sensitive matters. He also required from me an oath to serve you at need as I had served him. That oath still binds me, and I say to you now that I will fulfill that oath no matter what it may cost me." He was saddened by the thought of the inner turmoil that could drive his young Queen to consider something as horrific as this proposal, but he would not fail his monarch at this difficult time.

"Thank you, Admiral. Your loyalty reassures me that perhaps I will be able to fulfill the role set for me, as my father would have hoped." Elsa was relieved. She hadn't been sure she could convince him without having to actually demonstrate her magic.

She reached into a drawer in her desk and brought out a rolled up drawing, laying it out on her desktop. It was a set of blueprints that she had prepared herself.

"Here is exactly what I would like to have built, in the lowest level of the castle. You can re-purpose one of the storage rooms, but it will need to be reinforced." She looked up at the him. "I am sure I don't need to point out that the reason for this room's existence, and who it is intended to imprison must stay a secret for only the two of us?"

The Admiral rose to his feet and bowed deeply to his Queen. "You have my oath, Your Majesty." Elsa nodded her thanks.

* * *

"And that's how an unused storage room became a dungeon with very special manacles, for a very special ... prisoner." Elsa finished the story for Anna.

Now Anna was the one with tears in her eyes. "Oh, Elsa. How absolutely horrible that is. You were so alone." Elsa patted her hand.

"Anna, that was my fault, and Mama and Papa's. We shouldn't have shut you out. But that's over and done with. I'll never shut you out again. I've learned that lesson; WE'VE learned that lesson!"

Elsa gripped Anna's hand a bit tighter. "And there was a very small benefit to that dungeon. Once I knew it was there, that there was an alternative in place if I failed, it helped me focus, helped me through some situations where I might have lost control otherwise."

Anna wiped her tears away. "Okay, but how did the dungeon get destroyed?"

"After you and Kristoff ... left ... my Ice Palace..." Elsa began.

"Got chased away, you mean!" Anna interrupted indignantly.

"Got chased away." Elsa admitted and continued "Hans and a group of soldiers came and captured me, and brought me back to Arendelle. And somehow Hans had found out about the dungeon, so he locked me in with the manacles covering my hands. And they worked. For a little while."

Thoughtfully, Elsa mused, "One of the guards probably told him. Once the dungeon was built, it obviously wasn't a secret to anyone who had business in that part of the castle. Just who had it built, and its purpose were secret. Not its actual existence."

"When they brought me back, they could hardly lock me up in the town jail." Elsa actually chuckled at the feeble joke. Anna tried to share a smile, but she really didn't think it was funny.

"How did you break out?"

Elsa answered with a shrug. "Hans came and told me that you hadn't returned from the mountain and that frightened me. I was afraid that something** had **happened to you when I lost control at the Ice Palace. Fear was the main driver of my magic at that point, a very powerful driver - more fear, more power, less control. Just before Hans came back to execute me, I managed to bring down the walls and break the manacles, then run out onto the fjord. I was hoping that if I ran farther this time, I would take the winter with me. A forlorn hope since my fear was so great that even I couldn't find my way through that raging blizzard." she finished bitterly.

Anna and Elsa had been told how Hans had lied to the visiting dignitaries about Anna's death, and declared that he would execute Elsa for treason. It was fortunate that Elsa had been able to escape that cell, or Hans' plan to usurp the throne might have worked. He would have killed Elsa, there would have been no act of true love to keep Anna from freezing to death and the kingdom would probably still be under mountains of snow.

"You know the rest." Elsa concluded.

Anna nodded. "So, now what?"

Elsa just shook her head. "Now it's time to repair the castle walls, I suppose. I think I've put it off this long because the memories were so painful. Almost everything else is complete."

Mulling that over, Anna replied, "I have a better idea. Put me in charge of the project."

Elsa just looked at her, wondering when her sister had developed an interest in castle repair. "All right. I'll tell Kai. You can start tomorrow."

With a satisfied smirk on her face, Anna held out the box again. "Have another chocolate?"

* * *

**Author Note:**

**I decided to split this into two chapters, and remove the extensive end notes from the story. That way, any alerts anyone gets for a new chapter will take them to a really new chapter, not just updated author's notes!**

**This particular story is my speculation on where those manacles came from in the dungeon so conveniently at hand for Hans to lock Elsa up when he brought her back from the mountain. And how Anna decides on a way to make Elsa forget all about the bad memories that dungeon evokes.**


	5. Walking Through Walls Part 2

**Part 2 - Walking Through Walls**

The next morning Anna dragged Kristoff along as she began the project.

Kristoff just scratched his head after she explained what she was doing.

"She put you in charge of what?" He had only known Anna for a few weeks, but he was already familiar with the feeling of trying to keep up with a whirlwind.

This time, they were standing outside a broken down castle wall while Anna kept looking at it, going inside the room, and coming back out.

"Fixing this castle wall." Anna explained patiently.

"Okay, Feisty Pants. I got that the first time. But why? I didn't realize you had ambitions to become an engineer." They had left Sven in his stable, and Olaf had disappeared somewhere as he did occasionally. He could be in town or off glacier hunting for all they knew.

"I don't. But I don't want Elsa to ever look at this wall and remember what happened again." Anna had told the tale to Kristoff, leaving out some personal details. He was as horrified as Anna had been.

In the immediate aftermath of the Great Thaw, Kristoff had been wary of Elsa, even a little afraid of her. Since then, Anna shared stories of their growing up, and he had been with them on a visit to the Trolls when Anna discovered there was information she didn't know about Elsa. He became rather more understanding of everything that the two sisters had been through over the course of their young lives, and his feelings about Elsa had mellowed.

That was probably a good thing, since being scared iceless of your friend's big sister was not conducive to any ... different feelings that might grow between ... friends. Kristoff wasn't sure if it was true love yet, but he was convinced that his feelings for Anna would become more than just friendship.

Anna keep skipping around, looking at the wall from different angles, clearly frustrated. "Any ideas?" she turned to Kristoff.

"Ideas about what?" He shook himself out of his daydream about having the scary Ice Queen as his sister-in-law and focused his attention back on Anna.

"What to do with this abomination!" Anna snapped back. "Help me out here!"

Anna had already decided to seal up the room from the inside and had the workman start on that. From inside the castle, no one would ever realize that there had been a room there. Good riddance was her attitude. The only thing that would have made her happier would have been if she could have sealed Hans inside, but he was long gone back to the Southern Isles. More good riddance.

Kristoff looked around for somewhere to sit, but there weren't any convenient rocks or boulders nearby. He finally sat on the broken wall of the castle. "Hmm...you know, she'll never be able to forget what happened. Maybe the thing to do is put something here that will remind her of happier memories."

Anna stopped and looked at Kristoff. "That's actually a great idea!" She got the look on her face that Kristoff identified as 'Princess thinking hard - BEWARE!' Every time he had seen that look, it had led to ... interesting experiences.

"Let's go!" Anna started running back toward the castle gate. Kristoff got up to follow, thinking that it would have been shorter to cut through the dungeon, if Anna hadn't had the masons brick up the door.

* * *

"Your Highness, the Crown of Arendelle already has a coat of arms!"

The Royal Herald was one of the most pretentious and condescending members of Elsa's staff. Anna hadn't dealt with him before and if she never had to deal with him again it would be too soon.

"I know that. I am not suggesting that I want to replace the official coat of arms. I just want something ... more personal. Something symbolic that has special meaning for just me and my sister. I think you know her, she's the Queen?" Anna was trying to control her sarcasm, but not succeeding notably well.

If she thought an appeal to higher authority would influence the Royal Herald, she was disappointed. All this declaration got her was a sniff and a harrumph from the man. She tried again.

"Look, here's a sketch I made up." and she unrolled a drawing on the Herald's drafting board.

It wasn't much to look at; Anna wasn't an artist, and she didn't even play one on the stage. The Herald gave it a cursory glance, and sniffed again. "Those colors clash horribly, you are using two different metals, Your Highness, and really, a snowman? A snowman isn't even real, and you expect to put it on a royal coat of arms?" His disdain was clear.

Anna spoke through clenched teeth. "A unicorn isn't real, either, and I've seen THOSE on a coat of arms!" Damn the man's snobbishness.

The Royal Herald simply said to her, a note of dismissal in his voice, "My office is not here to take the scribbles of an ... amateur and make them over into a coat of arms. I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I must respectfully decline to take part in this endeavor."

Anna was furious. She rolled up the scroll and stomped out of his office. Kristoff was waiting in the hallway. She didn't even slow down, but kept stalking toward the door to the castle courtyard. He knew that look on Anna's face and it meant she wouldn't slow down until she had walked off her mad. Probably about the time she got to Sweden, from the looks of it. Sighing, he strode briskly to catch up to her.

"I'm guessing he wasn't interested in helping you out, huh?" Kristoff asked her.

"That conceited, specious, vainglorious, pompous, puffed up, overblown, supercilious, narcissistic ..." she went on in that vein for longer than Kristoff would have believed possible. Her vocabulary impressed him. He hadn't realized there were that many words that meant 'stuck up and in love with yourself'.

"... overbearing, egotistical, pompous ASS!" she finally finished. Kristoff noted only one repetition in the string of descriptions of the Royal Herald. Impressive. Very impressive.

They were walking at a brisk pace through the courtyard, heading for the gate into town. Anna showed no signs of slowing down yet. It was a good thing Kristoff had longer legs, or he's be running to keep up with her.

"Where are we going?" Kristoff was wondering out loud, hoping Anna wasn't too mad to block him out.

"There's a shop in town where I can get help from someone who's not too proud to work with an 'amateur'!" Anna fumed, and kept going toward the marketplace.

* * *

"Ta-DA!" Anna unveiled the shield propped up on an easel. Kristoff looked it over carefully.

"Okay, what am I looking at here?" he asked. He was an ice harvester, not an expert in heraldry. He did recognize Olaf. Scratching his head, he said "It looks like a picture of Olaf on a blue shield, surrounded by those little flowers and snowflakes."

"Azure, a snowman rampant between four crocuses or and as many mullets of six points argent, in annulo," Anna said proudly.

"Mullets? Like fish?" Kristoff

"Mullets like stars," Anna clarified. "But you can draw them any way you like, so they're actually snowflakes. **Elsa's** snowflakes!"

Kristoff knew about the special snowflakes. Everything Elsa created with her magic included a unique snowflake design. Her Ice Palace had them embedded in the walls, ceilings, and floors. When she thawed the kingdom, all the snow and ice had formed a giant one in the sky before she magically dissipated it. He had one on his Royal Ice Master and Deliverer amulet.

He had another question. "What's written on that green ribbon underneath? I don't recognize the language."

"It's Latin, Kristoff. It says 'tabuerit dilectio', which means 'Love will thaw'!" Anna explained. She clapped her hands and skipped a little. "Do you think Elsa will like it?" She turned to him anxiously.

Kristoff looked at Anna affectionately. She had gotten help and advice from the artisan who owned the shop, but had done most of the work painting the shield herself. This was going to be a very personal gift from her to Elsa.

He thought he understood why she had included everything that was on the shield, but to be sure, he said, "Could you explain it all to me? Ice harvesters don't usually have coats of arms."

It was the right thing to say. Anna grabbed his hand to drag him closer to the easel. She was grinning and bouncing with enthusiasm.

"Okay, well, the background is blue, a color that stands for truth and loyalty. Loyalty that Elsa showed to her kingdom and her responsibilities as Queen. Also, blue, Snow Queen, you know! The crocuses represent Arendelle, and they're yellow; yellow means generosity, or giving. Elsa is nothing if not the most giving person I know."

"I'm guessing the snowflakes stand for Elsa and her magic?" Kristoff asked.

"Yes! And they're white, like Olaf. White represents peace and innocence. She could use a little peace after all the excitement we've had. The image of Olaf is to remind her of the innocence of the love we'd shared since we were little kids, which I'm pretty sure was on her mind when she created him. So, when she looks at this, she won't think of that awful dungeon. She'll remember all the good things we've shared, instead!"

"Lastly, the green on the banner represents hope, joy and loyalty in love. The hope and joy are obvious, right? And the loyalty in love would be, well ... " Anna was a little embarrassed, Kristoff could tell, so he finished her sentence for her.

"That would be the act of true love that saved you both. And all the rest of us, too." Kristoff squeezed her hand. "I think she's going to be really happy with this, Feisty Pants."

* * *

Elsa walked gingerly down the path to the fjord. Gingerly because she was blindfolded. She had Kristoff holding her arm on one side and Anna on the other, so she was in no immediate danger of falling or tripping. Anna had learned her lesson when she ran Kristoff into a pole the day she showed him his new sled, so they were walking rather more carefully this time.

"Are we almost there, Anna?" Elsa wasn't really worried, well, maybe just a little. She trusted her sister not to intentionally dump her into a mud puddle or the fjord, but Anna's good intentions could be undermined by her exuberant clumsiness. Elsa gripped Kristoff's arm a bit tighter.

"Just a little farther. Don't worry, Elsa! I'm not going to drop you in a mud puddle!" Sometimes Anna could be positively telepathic with her sister.

They finally reached the spot where Elsa's surprise waited. Positioning her carefully to face the now-repaired castle wall, Anna reached up and took off the blindfold so her sister could see what now hung there.

It took Elsa only a moment to understand what she was looking at. Unlike Kristoff, she HAD been tutored in the language of heraldry, and immediately interpreted what the colors and symbols on the shield were saying to her. It touched her, deeply, and she turned to embrace Anna in one of the warmest hugs she was capable of.

"Oh, Anna! It's perfect!" Elsa's voice was a little ragged, she was fighting back happy tears.

"And that's not all! Look around!" Anna replied, a little teary herself.

Elsa looked around the immediate area and saw that the ground had been cleared and smoothed out to create a space large enough for people to walk and perhaps picnic. There were several benches set near the castle wall, so someone might sit and enjoy the view over the fjord. The path down from the gate now extended all the way around the tower.

"Anna, you did a wonderful job!" Elsa was so proud of her sister. "We'll definitely be taking walks and having picnics here from now on!"

"Did I hear someone say picnic!" Olaf came bounding up, a red and white checked tablecloth flapping behind him like a cape, carrying a picnic basket. Sven followed close behind the little snowman. They had been firmly instructed to wait until Anna had shown the newly decorated wall to Elsa before joining the group. For once, they had actually paid attention.

* * *

The inaugural picnic had been an overwhelming success. It had been a long time since Kristoff had enjoyed an outing so much. Must be the company. He glanced over to where the two sisters were giggling over some story involving nannies and frozen tea.

"And then the look on her face when you started complaining about your underwear..." Elsa could hardly get the words out through her snickering. Anna was literally rolling on the ground, laughing. The two women finally caught their breath and settled down to an occasional chuckle, Anna laying with her head in Elsa's lap.

Elsa took her sister's hand and looked up at the coat of arms hanging on the castle wall.

"Anna, that's the best gift anyone has ever given me. But I can't leave it there."

"Why not?" Anna was worried Elsa thought it wasn't appropriate or something.

"Because I'm moving it to my room. It's too precious to leave out here in the weather. I want it where it's the last thing I see before I fall asleep and the first thing I see when I wake up." Elsa looked at her sister. "So I'll always remember the love of my baby sister, the love that saved us all." Tears glistened in her eyes. Anna sniffled a little, too.

"But don't worry! I'm sure the Royal Herald will be more than happy to make a duplicate for me that we can hang out here on the wall!" Elsa assured her sister.

Kristoff looked at Anna; Anna looked at Kristoff. Elsa just looked puzzled when they both burst into guffaws.

* * *

**Author Notes for "Walking Through Walls"**

**I owe a big "Thank You!" to stillslightlynerdy for three reasons:**

1) I had written myself (literally) into a blank wall. The same one Anna was staring at, wondering what to do. ssnerdy made a brilliant suggestion, which I had Kristoff offer to Anna, on how to get out of the muddle.

So, while mulling the exact way to do that, the phrase "azure, a rampant snowman, argent" popped into my brain. Probably because I was reading a novel that involved SCA people taking over the world. Which led to the idea of:

2) Anna designing a coat of arms as a gift to Elsa. Based on that phrase above, plus an incredibly craptastic ASCII art representation of what I thought it should look like, ssnerdy whipped out the actual picture of the coat of arms, which I have used as the book cover picture for the story. There's also a link to a better copy of the shield in my profile.

3) Finally, since we want to be sure to do this right, ssnerdy also translated that wonderful picture into the correct phrasing in the language of heraldry, blazon, which I included in the story.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you!

And if you haven't read any of the stories written by stillslightlynerdy, you should do so. They are great.


	6. Walking Out Of Yesterday

**Chapter 6 - Walking Out of Yesterday**

Anna is still brooding over the life-altering revelations from GrandPabbie. She needed to vent her anger to someone. There were only two people she could share this with, so she takes a long walk up a short hill. All feels, no plot in this chapter, as our girls finally mourn together.

* * *

Anna was alone.

This was not unusual. In fact, for thirteen years, she had been mostly alone, isolated from people in general and her sister Elsa in particular. Because she was a gregarious, friendly person with an outgoing personality, this was distressing and troubling to her. She chafed under the isolation. After 13 years of growing up mostly alone, she had burst free of the confining castle gates almost two weeks ago, and had promised herself she would never be alone again.

The day of her sister's coronation as Queen of Arendelle had been one of liberation and giddy excitement. She had danced through the castle and the streets, celebrating for herself, not her sister. She had even met a prince, someone she thought was THE one!

Then came the awful disaster when her sister Elsa had been goaded into revealing just WHY she had been isolated from Anna and the rest of the kingdom. Goaded by Anna. Goaded into running away and leaving a howling blizzard in her wake, a blizzard in July.

Anna had pursued her sister, THINKING she now understood her sister's situation, thinking she could bring her back to thaw the kingdom and be her best friend again. And how obliviously, cheerfully she had tried to bring Elsa back to Arendelle from the Ice Palace, not realizing how literal a warning "You're not safe here!" was. She had blindly assumed Elsa was just spooked by the exposure of her secret.

Anna was wrong.

But Elsa eventually thawed the kingdom and reunited with Anna, and everything was fine.

Until three days ago, when Kristoff had told Anna that Elsa had almost killed her not once, but twice. This shock had angered Anna who led them on a visit to the trolls, the three of them together, to confront GrandPabbie. When the full import of what had really happened hit her, Anna was ashamed of herself, and told Elsa so. Elsa had hugged her, and said, "Anna, you can only act on information you have. Mama and Papa hid that from you, and so did I. But if I learned anything from that mess, it's that I will never hide things like that from you ever again."

After returning to Arendelle from the visit to the trolls, the two sisters had parted ways with Kristoff, and spent that night together, talking over the events that had been revealed to Anna. Elsa was taking GrandPabbie's advice to heart, and sharing their happy childhood play with Anna, and the harsh details of the accident where she had hurt her baby sister. They shed a few tears, but there were more giggles and stories of nannies and frozen tea. Anna had never realized just WHO had taught her all those nannie-annoying skills! They fell asleep giggling together, comforted by each other's love.

When Anna awoke the next morning, Elsa was long gone. She had a kingdom to run, and was determined to prove she was fit to rule. It had only been a few days and already Anna worried her sister was trying to do too much too soon. Trying to atone for ... something ... something besides the swirling storm she had created.

Anna spent the day brooding. She wasn't avoiding Kristoff, but this wasn't something she felt comfortable sharing with him yet. She was getting angry again, and she knew who she really needed to talk to.

* * *

It was quiet on the hill. The sun was low in the sky, starting to color it with pink and gold. A warm breeze caressed Anna's cheek as she sat rocking, her arms around her knees, staring at the two cenotaphs with the names of her parents carved into the gray stones. The inscriptions were simple: "Idun, Queen, Taken From Us By The Sea". The only difference between them was her father's name on his. "Agdar, King". The people of Arendelle didn't believe much in frills. Obvious, stolid, like the harsh land they lived in.

This was not the first time Anna had come to visit and talk to her parents. It WAS the first time she had come with anger in her heart instead of grief.

"How could you do that to me? How could you do that to HER?" Anna realized she would get no answer, but she needed to vent, and there simply was no one else. Who, after all, could you tell about the anger verging on hatred you suddenly felt toward your parents? Dead parents, who could neither explain nor comfort.

"All those years you let me wonder why Elsa had abandoned me! Let me think I had done something wrong! When I got older, I felt like I was the one with a grievance, it was all about me. Why did I have to be cooped up in the castle because of Elsa? You never explained, just spoke in vague platitudes when I asked you about it!"

"'It's nothing, Anna.' 'Just be patient, Anna!' 'Elsa has a lot of studying to do, Anna.'" Her voice kept rising in volume.

Anna had gotten up and started pacing about halfway through this tirade. She was just getting started.

"Then you went off and died and left us! And Elsa still wouldn't talk to me! She didn't even come to the memorial service! And when I tried to talk to her afterwards, it was nothing but the same silence!"

"And all the time, you thought you were protecting me! And that worked so well that SHE ACTUALLY KILLED ME!" A final scream to the unhearing stones, and Anna fell to her knees again and began to sob.

She became aware of someone sitting down next to her. She was so startled, she almost struck out and knocked them over before she realized it was Elsa.

"El..Elsa?" Anna's voice was shaky through her tears. "How much of that did you hear?" She could tell that her sister was trembling from some strong emotion, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. _"Oh, Anna, what did you just do to her?"_

"Enough, Anna. Enough to know that we need to talk some more." Elsa reached out with a tentative hand, the look of longing in her eyes clear enough to Anna. Anna scooted closer to her and embraced her sister, laying her head on Elsa's shoulder and letting the tears flow freely again. Elsa just held her, rocking gently and caressing Anna's hair, crooning soft, comforting wordless sounds as Anna was wracked with sobs.

Some timeless moments later, Anna stirred, wiped her eyes and sat up looking into Elsa's. They were red, and there were still tear tracks on her cheeks, matching the ones on Anna's.

"I'm sorry." Both women spoke at once. They looked at each other and chuckled joylessly.

"Me, first!" Anna spoke, and Elsa nodded.

"I'm sorry for being so selfish. I'm sorry for being a brat at your coronation ball and embarrassing you and the kingdom in front of diplomats from across the continent. I'm sorry for being so stupid and leaving Hans in charge and almost getting both of us killed."

Anna had been reliving thirteen years of her life since the visit to GrandPabbie, reinterpreting all the events she thought she understood in light of the revelation that Elsa had hurt her when she was five years old. Realizing that she had been driving a knife of guilt and shame into Elsa's heart every time she tried to talk to her.

"I'm sorry for being so oblivious that I couldn't see that you must have been hurting, too; that it wasn't all about me." Anna finished her litany. "Will you forgive me?"

Elsa just gave her a small, sad smile. "How can I NOT forgive you? After what you did on the fjord? After all those years when I hid away from you, when I just tried to be the good, obedient girl Mama and Papa wanted me to be, trusting them to be right about this, no matter how wrong it felt."

She looked at the two stones, feeling the grief still raw, three years on.

"I'm sorry I never had the courage to stand up for myself, for you. Sorry that I never challenged what Papa was telling me." Elsa sighed. "Even after we lost them and we were on our own, just the two of us. I was the Queen. I should have acted like one then." She shook her head. "No, not like a Queen. Like a sister. I should have reached out to you then, told you what had happened, told you how much I missed you, how much I needed you."

Elsa continued as she stroked Anna's hand. "It's not just other people we need to forgive. We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done." Tipping Anna's head to look into her sister's eyes, she went on, "I forgive you. I still need to forgive myself. And ... forgive them." A nod toward the stones.

"They made a mistake about this. They had our best interests at heart, they were doing it out of love, but it was still a mistake." Elsa's voice was soft, musing. Anna could have listened to her for days, years, after so long of never hearing that voice. Such a beautiful, expressive voice, full of affection and caring. Even her simplest words were like a song, a melody meant only for Anna.

"Even though we forgive each other, it's not going to erase everything that happened in the past. Pabbie altered your memories to remove the images of my magic. If he hadn't left the fun, you might not have still loved me all those years later. Then where would we be? Both dead, most likely. With a usurper on the throne, and the kingdom still frozen." Anna shuddered, but Elsa just hugged her tighter. "Shhhh...that didn't happen. Because of you; because you never lost faith in me, because you still loved me and were willing to die for me. We're here, we're alive, and after all that sorrow, we have each other again."

"Elsa, how can you really forgive me? I was so selfish, I never stopped to think about you." Anna needed her sister's reassurance. Having all of your convictions about the truth of your life overturned and tumbled upside down took time to absorb.

"Anna, I do forgive you. I hope you forgive me. But it's not a one-time thing. It will take both of us time and patience. Just because we forgive each other, we're not forgetting anything that happened, not denying all the pain we caused each other; we're just denying that pain the right to control our lives from now on."

"But I'm still angry at ... at Mama and Papa." Anna admitted. "It isn't fair; they're not here, they can't defend themselves, but I'm still angry."

A lingering silence.

"So am I. Angry, I mean." Elsa looked at the two stones, kissed her sister gently, and stood up. She walked to her father's stone, laid a hand on it and bowed her head so it rested on his name. Anna could see her lips moving, but couldn't make out the words. Then, louder, so Anna could hear. "This isn't the first time I've come here."

"What?" Anna wasn't sure she had heard correctly. Another revelation; she had thought that Elsa had never left the castle in those thirteen years.

"Yes. I couldn't come to the memorial; the grief was so overwhelming that I lost control of my magic. Then, when you came back to the castle, knocking on my door and ... and ... well, it got worse. Oh, how I wanted to answer you, to cry with you, to mourn them with you. To hold you in my arms like the big sister I should have been. But I couldn't. I was too afraid of hurting you one more time." Elsa was still leaning into the stone, tears trickling down her cheeks again.

"But a few days later, in the dead of night, I snuck out of the castle and came here. I loved them, and I missed them, and I had to tell them that, even though in my head I knew I wasn't any closer to them here than I was in my room. But the heart is not as easily persuaded as the head. My heart needed to be here to say goodbye." Elsa kissed her father's stone, then did the same to her mother's.

She walked back to sit next to Anna once more, wrapping her arms around her sister and kissing her tenderly.

"We can't deny our anger, Anna. It's just part of being human. I'm not a saint, and neither are you. If we deny the anger, we open ourselves to hate. Can you hate them?" A nod toward the stones. Anna shook her head, no. "If we let ourselves be angry, then the hate can't keep its hold on us, and we can forgive. We need to forgive. But never to forget. We learned the lessons, we paid for them in the hard coin of pain and sorrow and shame. We can never forget."

After the two women sat in quiet reverie for a few more moments, Elsa stood up and helped Anna to her feet. Facing her, she took both her hands in her own and looked her sister in the eye.

"On our parents' graves, I swear this to you: I will never again push you away. I will never again keep secrets from you. I will never, ever make a decision that concerns you without sharing that decision with you and letting you share in making it. And I am asking you right now to forgive me if I slip up, because I will make mistakes, again. I love you, I never stopped loving you, and I never will stop loving you as long as I live."

"Oh, Elsa! I promise you the same thing! And I know I'll make mistakes, too, but please forgive me when I do. I am your sister, and you are mine, and you will never be alone again. I love you so much." They both had tears in their eyes as they hugged each other, the loving touch they had been denied for so many years.

Arms around each other's waists, they looked at their parents' memorial stones once more before turning down the hill for the return to Arendelle.

"We love you, Mama, Papa. We'll visit again, both of us." they murmured together.

Two sisters, together, at last and forever.

* * *

**Author's notes:**

Credit for the translation on the cenotaphs of the king and queen goes to "Panya's Blog: Linguistic Aspect" which I found with a Google search, although I rephrased slightly from the straight translation of "She died in the sea" Apparently a programmer who is also a student of linguistics, Panya not only translated the runes on the cenotaphs but the book the king finds in the library with the map to the trolls. I thank Panya for sharing the translation with us. The blog is in Thai, except for the discussion of the runes, so I could not read the "About" page. The Internet is an amazing place.


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